Nutty was a movie freak. Never one to miss any movie, the poor girl had been sentenced to a period of abstinence at the academy. It rankled her, till the day she learnt there was a movie hall in the campus, where movies were screened twice a week. The best part was that like every other parade, cadets had to compulsorily attend the movie parade at the Chanakya Auditorium.
Movie days were very popular with the hassled cadets. Everyone looked forward to a few hours of respite. For the sleep-deprived cadets, it was an opportunity to catch a blissful 40 winks in the safety of the dark and cool atmosphere. It was usual for the dialogues in the movie to be punctuated by the sound of snores. No one grudged them the nap during the movie, but what happened thereafter was a different matter altogether. Every bit of enjoyment should come with payback, the appointments believed.
The rules were strict. No hooting or whistling was allowed, not even when the sexy heroine gyrated to a hot number. Boys being boys, laboured under the false impression that mischief would go undetected in a crowd. A GC would let out a whistle under the cover of darkness. No mischief remained punishment free in the academy. After the end of the movie, the entire lot of cadets had to pay for that single act of recklessness. Every GC was made to roll all the way to the mess, which was quite a distance away. The LCs, however, were a sedate lot. They were content in giggling or sleeping, with no intentions of attracting attention. In any case, it was doubly risky for them to commit mischief, since their small number made it easier to single out the offender.
There was much hullabaloo on the first movie day, with Madame Nutty going total nuts. The fact that GCs and LCs sat in different areas didn’t seem to matter to the girl, who was intent on catching a few eyes.
‘Just think of all the boys who will be there,’ she said, her bright eyes alive with excitement. ‘Girls, I just can’t wait to reach the auditorium.’
She dressed carefully in her mufti, debating if she should risk a dab of perfume. Better sense prevailed. The CSM was like a sniffer dog. Nothing escaped her twitching, long nose.
‘Watch out!’ warned Shiny. ‘We will be surrounded by wardens.’
‘What a damper you are! Think of your boyfriend. Aaron will be there, too.’
‘I know he will be there, but I am not risking my neck to meet him,’ retorted the cautious Shiny. ‘Don’t we have enough trouble on our hands?’
‘I feel it is madness to go an hour before the show,’ said Lucky. ‘The theatre is not even a kilometre away. Are we allowed to carry potato chips inside?’
‘Don’t even think of it,’ Shiny cautioned. ‘Where will you hide it? In any case, there might be a refreshment counter in the theatre.’
‘We don’t know that, do we?’ countered Lucky, who loved chips as much as she loved her mother’s tungrymbai.
Most LCs had taken pains with their looks. It was their first outing, after all. Some of them had risked a dab of natural lipstick or a faint line of kohl.
It didn’t take them long to realize the folly of it all. A team of appointments stood outside the entrance, carrying out dress check.
One by one, the girls were checked, and some of them were pulled aside. Saddie’s trousers were creased and grimy. Seema was pulled aside because only one lace of her shoes was visible beneath her trousers, instead of the mandatory two. She tried to adjust the trousers so two laces were now visible, but the senior was not convinced. Dirty collars, unpolished shoes, wrong socks, un-ironed dresses, lipstick, kohls, perfumes, there were reasons galore. The offenders found themselves ordered to remain in murga position. Lucky, who had not been able to resist carrying a packet of chips, found herself joining the murga gang, while the rest of the first-termers entered the hall.
A similar thing was happening at another part of the hall, where the GCs were being checked by their appointments. Soon, half the cadets were squatting in murga position outside the hall.
Their ordeal came to an end just five minutes before the movie was to start, when the murga gang was let off with a warning and told to rush to their seats in a disciplined manner. The seating plan was fixed. The balcony was reserved for the officers and the families of the officers posted at OTA, while the lesser mortals called GCs and LCs sat down below. The juniors sat in the front rows while the senior cadets sat behind them. The LCs sat separately, away from the boys.
The LCs were herded to their seats by the watchful appointments, with strict warnings against any misconduct. Despite craning her neck, Nutty failed to catch the attention of any of the GCs sitting across the aisle. The poor chaps stared at the screen, not daring to allow their glances to stray towards the area where the LCs were seated.
‘It’s such a disappointment,’ grumbled Nutty, who had been looking forward to fluttering her eyelashes at some GCs. ‘The guys are not even looking this way.’
Just then, she felt a hard knock on her head. It had come from the back.
‘Ouch!’ She rubbed the spot and winced. The message was loud and clear, juniors were not supposed to talk or look around. The seniors sitting behind them were on the watch.
‘Focus your eyes on the screen,’ the warning followed the knock. ‘Or I will be forced to focus it for you.’
Not a word was exchanged after the warning. The realization that the CSM had eyes that could bore through the darkness kept Nutty in check, although her deep sighs continued to assail her companions.
The movie screened that day was Manikarnika, and the cadets were soon engrossed in the action unravelling before them. Impressed by the rani’s horse-riding and sword-wielding skills, Nutty forgot all about the GCs.
Those who were desperate for some shut-eye began snoring soon after the movie began. The perception that ladies do not snore was laid to rest inside the theatre. Some LCs were certainly capable of beating the GCs at the game.
During the interval, just as Shiny had predicted, there was a refreshment counter and a well-stocked one too. The tantalizing smell of piping hot snacks lured the cadets in droves. Lucky, who was determined to buy a packet of chips, was disappointed to observe that the seniors were given the first chance to line up at the counter. Only after they finished were the juniors allowed to line up. Also, they were ordered to enter the hall before the seniors. As a result, the juniors were either unable to buy the refreshments, or they had to dump half-eaten snacks and drinks in the dustbin and rush to the hall before the seniors.
The juniors who had visited the washroom found no time to buy anything at all.
But some people never learn. Excited by Rani Laxmibai’s stunts, one of the cadets couldn’t resist yelling. All of a sudden, he shouted ‘Yeeha!’ Loud and clear, it echoed in the hall. All heads turned in the direction of the errant GC. The poor sod was so engrossed in the movie, that he forgot that he was sitting in the Chanakya Theatre inside the OTA. To make things worse, he followed up the yell with a whistle, not unlike the ones one normally hears in theatres when the heroine is swept off her feet by the hero. Such behaviour was not condoned at the academy.
The cadets realized it the hard way, as they were made to front roll all the way to the mess for dinner. It was clear that it is never about individual punishments, but a cumulative one, where everyone shares the blame for misconduct.
‘Why should all the GCs suffer punishment, just because one of them was stupid enough to whistle? I don’t think it’s fair,’ said Nutty as they walked out of the auditorium.
‘It’s an important lesson, Peanut. Comradeship is all about shared experiences. The cadets do not become brothers due to blood ties; they are bonded together because of common joys and sufferings. As they say, nothing can bind people together, than calloused hands, blistered feet and broken egos,’ said Shiny.
For those that went punishment free, the excellent dinner after the movie was the topping on their cake.
And the cadets who rolled all the way to the mess and shed gallons of sweat, sank their frustration in heaps of rice and chicken curry, and found their salvation in the delicious dessert.
Sated, the gang of four jogged back to the company, their discussions revolving around Kangana Ranaut’s sword-fighting and riding skills.
‘I am impressed by that woman,’ Lucky remarked. ‘She must have trained and practiced for hours to attain her expertise in handling the reins and riding on rough terrains.’
‘It’s a part of their job,’ Billi countered. ‘Don’t forget they are paid an astronomical amount of money.’
‘That’s true! Yet, one has to be sincere to make the effort. She could have easily used a double.’
‘How do you know it wasn’t her double who was riding and sword-fighting?’
‘I don’t think it is such a difficult thing to learn riding. Give me a month and I will be riding better than her,’ boasted Nutty.
Her comment drew amused titters from her friends.
‘Before you know, Nutty will be a famous Bollywood star,’ Shiny joked.
The very next day, her friends were tickled to find an aim card stuck on Nutty’s door. Aim cards were popular among the cadets. They stuck the card on the cabin’s door, listing out the goals they hoped to achieve each month. Along with a couple of other aims, she had written – ‘Become an excellent rider.’
Little did she know that the opportunity to prove herself would arrive very soon.